


Pawns

by The Hag (hagsrus)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-12
Updated: 2011-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hagsrus/pseuds/The%20Hag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aftermath of episode The Ojuka Situation</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pawns

"Got the soddin' bandages wet now." Doyle stood in the bathroom doorway looking disgustedly at the soggy cotton encircling his wrists.

"Sodden's about right," Bodie agreed. "Fresh ones, no problem. Go in and relax, Ray, I'll get them."

Doyle looked at him for a moment, instinctive refusal of help on his creased and haggard face, then shrugged slightly with a kind of exhausted defeat and turned away, heading for the living room. Bodie gathered up bandages and scissors and the burn ointment and followed.

Swathed in his white towelling robe, Doyle had slumped down in a corner of the sofa, staring at nothing, not even reaching for the drink he had abandoned when the need for a bath had suddenly seemed overwhelming. Bodie sat on the coffee table in front of him. "Let's be having you, then, angelfish," he said briskly.

"Cat bloody well got me this time," Doyle muttered.

"Well, you got the cat in the end, didn't you? Pick a hand, Ray."

Doyle stared uncomprehending for a moment, then extended his right hand, watching Bodie's strong fingers unwind the wet wrapping. "Cowley," he said, voice flat. "Just a game to him."

"More like all work. I think he forgets..." Bodie trailed off, smearing salve onto clean gauze and starting the rebandaging, very aware of Doyle's suppressed breath of pain. The smell of the ointment and the gauze mingled with the faint soap and shampoo scent, Doyle's hair damp and tousled. _Medic tells him to keep the bandages dry so of course he has to wash his hair._ Bruising on the knuckles....

"Other one," Bodie commanded.

Strong, thin wrists. The left one had caught more of the flame.

"Pawns," Doyle said. "Cannon fodder."

"Obeying orders."

"Until we don't. Until you don't." Doyle smiled slightly. "Pawns getting stroppy, eh?"

"Do a lot with a pawn or two." Bodie worked slowly, trying to minimize the pain. "Think we'd count as knights at least."

"In tatty armour. God, I'm--tired of it all."

"Course you're tired. Been rough, sunshine."

"Always got his good reasons, Cowley. Yeah, I know. Signed my contract." Doyle's voice was bitter. "Pawn cocktails, what he makes of us. Wouldn't chuck a knight away so easily, would you?"

"Cowley? He'd chuck out bishops and rooks and all without a second thought. Anything to save the king. Besides, it's only a pawn can get to be queen. Queen Cowley." Bodie gave a token wrist-flip. "We might be up there in the Alpha seat one day."

"Fuckin' politics." Doyle reached for his drink and the top of his bathrobe fell open, tanned skin and swirling hair and small brown nipples. Shiny pink scar patch where Mayli's first bullet had gone in. "He'd knock the board over if he couldn't win. Why's it queens, anyway?"

"Started as Grand Vizier in Persia, I think. Don't know why it's queens now." He looked at the movement of Doyle's throat as he swallowed, and released the newly bandaged left wrist. The hand stayed poised for a moment-- _Queen's hand, King's hand, Grand Vizier's hand, the hand that holds power, Ray's hand...holds me_ \--and then rested on the arm of the sofa. Bodie gathered up the debris.

"You pissed him off," Doyle said.

"His problem." Bodie started for the kitchen. "Wasn't going to leave you there, was I? Still owe me two quid from last month's poker."

Used bandages disposed of, clean supplies returned to the bathroom cabinet, he returned to find Doyle had stretched himself full length, still holding that same unfinished glass of scotch. Bodie poured himself a fresh drink and sat on the coffee table again. Reason told him he should urge Doyle to go to bed, get some sleep; that he should go home and do the same.

But he didn't want to leave. He didn't want Doyle out of his sight, out of his hearing. He wanted to be able to reassure himself at any moment that Doyle was alive, was essentially unharmed: he still had nightmares of Doyle lying blank-eyed in his own blood and himself too late. Doyle gave him a vague, unhappy twitch of a smile, and Bodie said with forced cheerfulness: "Should have known you'd get yourself out. Where'd the lighter come from?"

"Carol's giving up cigarettes. Gave me her lighter to hold. Sort of talisman. Had it in my back pocket. Give her a giggle, won't it!"

"Didn't know you were still seeing her."

"Not really. Get together sometimes, but just social, mostly."

"Nobody serious, then?"

Doyle shook his head slightly. "Never seems to work out. The job...partly that..." He swallowed the rest of his drink. "Don't know what I'd've done without the lighter."

"Kicked him?"

"Suppose I'd've tried. Head butt might have worked. Got that refresher with Macklin due--see if he's got any tips for fighting back when you're tied up."

"He'll probably put you in a straitjacket and jump up and down on you, then tell you not enough hate."

"No shortage of that." Doyle contemplated the empty glass.

"Another one?"

"No..." He stretched to put the glass on the table and flinched, bringing his left hand to guard the tenderness of his bruised belly. "Oh, christ! Fed up with hurtin' all the time!" He turned his head and stared into Bodie's eyes. "It's only--knowing you wouldn't leave me there--Cowley would, but you--" His right hand settled briefly on the back of Bodie's, then drew back. "Gettin' all maudlin. Sorry." His face creased with embarrassed self-reproach.

Needs reassuring, Bodie thought. Needs distracting. Looking after. Needs--I need--

"Wouldn't leave you." Bodie's hand pursued, caught the long fingers: surprisingly, they curled around his own. Stayed. Tightened. Eyes widened. "Us pawns gotta take care of each other."

"Bodie..."

"Here, angelfish."

Doyle suddenly chuckled. "Like that one, do you?"

"Fishy kind of angel, you." Bodie was relieved by his sudden relaxation, astonished by--

"Holdin' your hand, aren't I?" Doyle looked at their interlaced fingers with a detached fascination, as if waiting to be told that he wasn't, that their twined fingers meant something else.

"Even more fishy." Bodie tightened his grip just a fraction.

"Daft, you are." Doyle's smiled, puzzled. _A joke. A game._ Bodie could read the speculation in those malachite eyes. "Never held a fella's hand before."

"Don't think I did, either." Another minuscule tightening.

"Done other things, though?" Doyle still smiled, but more warily.

Bodie grimaced, leaned on their mutual trust. "Yeah." _So: deadly peril time. Give him something else to think about anyway._ He nodded. "You ever...?"

Doyle looked away again. After a second he muttered, "Always too scared. Job, blackmail, everything. All the limp-wrist jokes..." His fingers clung. "Well, I like women, anyway, so it never seemed--"

"Makes it easier. Women." Bodie leaned forward and brushed Doyle's uneven cheekbone very lightly with the back of his left thumb. Stubble rough. Doyle inhaled sharply and his eyes snapped back to Bodie's. "When you can't have what you really want." He waited for Doyle to reject the caress. His thumb drifted down in a feathery touch to trace the outline of Doyle's mouth. "Really want."

Doyle looked at him in silence. Neutral. Waiting. _That deadpan look, prepared for anything. So gorgeous, his mouth._

"Not your scene, I know." Bodie took his hand away from Doyle's face and let the grip of his fingers on Doyle's loosen, so that Doyle would have to maintain the hold if he wanted it.

Evidently he wanted it. "Don't know what my scene is any more."

"Wouldn't be scared with me, would you?" _Shouldn't do this. He's all torn up. Hurting, body and mind. Shouldn't take advantage of him not being in the mood to clobber me._

"Scarin' me to death right this minute," Doyle said frankly.

"Well, it's only sex, Ray." Not really true, that. It would be--something different, not just sex--but Bodie felt he was already in deep enough. Just sex was safe. Give Doyle time to think about it, and meanwhile: "Don't know about you, sunshine, but my stomach thinks my throat's been cut. Fancy pizza or a Chinese?"

Doyle blinked. "Now you mention it--pizza sounds okay. Could use some beer, too."

Before he could think better of it, Bodie brought Doyle's hand up and dropped a kiss onto the fresh bandage. "All better?" He broke the hold. "Other one?"

"Berk!" But Doyle held out his other hand. "Ta, Mum."

Bodie stood up. "That local place still open?"

"Till midnight, I think."

"Want another drink?"

Doyle shrugged. "Yeah. Might as well. And chuck us the woggler."

Leaving Doyle supplied with scotch and the TV remote, Bodie retrieved his jacket and went forth to hunt and gather. Courting ritual. Bringing food. Gifts. He glanced at red roses in the window of the closed flower shop and shook his head in rueful self-mockery. He hadn't even taken that bunch to Marikka--he'd laughed when Doyle had told him, long after it was over and it didn't hurt too much to talk about it, what had happened to them. He remembered red roses stuffed behind Doyle's sofa cushion, himself holding them. Marikka and Ann and red roses. Flowers for Claire Sheldon put in hospital by flowers concealing explosive treachery.

Flowers for Doyle. Daft. Bottle of really good malt was the ticket. He'd order the pizza then stop at the off-license.

And he wouldn't say anything else about it, he resolved. If Doyle wanted anything more, let him give the signal. _Too scared,_ he'd said. Not _never thought about it._ Not even _never fancied the idea._

Doyle was dozing on the sofa, TV off, but opened his eyes when Bodie came in after depositing the beer and pizza and Glenlivet in the kitchen. "That my priapismic monster?"

Bodie's heart lurched. "Whenever you're up for it."

"To coin a phrase." Doyle chuckled. "Look, Bodie--"

Bodie waited, hope suspended. _Backing out?_

"Only sex?" Doyle asked quietly.

Bodie pulled in a long breath. "We could get--tied up with each other."

"Cowley wouldn't like it."

"There's a lot he doesn't like. You--matter more."

"Stroppy pawns." Doyle stood up. "Come here, then."

And years of hesitation, years of things unspoken, ended with the kiss that heralded the rest of their lives.


End file.
